1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to the field of network image transfer, and more particularly relates to the transfer of optimized image information relative to a network communication capability and a requesting device presentation capability.
2. Description of Related Art
Image information communication is commonly handled through a heterogeneous network. Additionally, image serving via the Internet is regularly designed for reception by both wired and wireless networked devices.
In the case of wired devices the connection may be through a high bandwidth T-1 connection, DSL, Cable modem, or using a telephone connected modem. The connection speed ranges from megabits per second down to 14 Kbits per second or even lower.
The wireless devices may be a fully functional desktop workstation connected through a very high bandwidth satellite connection or at the other extreme a small cell phone with a very slow connection to the Internet.
Cutting across the connection speed is the connected devices processing power and display capability. The display can range from a very large engineering workstation down to a cell phone with only an alphanumeric display.
Client/Server topology allows for web servers to respond to a user's request for certain files. Given a GUI (Graphical User Interface) most of these files comprise image information. The user need not know esoteric program languages. With web browsers the user can simply point and click with a mouse.
For TV within certain standards such as NTSC, (National Television Standards Committee) the broadcasting industry assures that all NTSC standard TV sets will render the programming faithfully with respect to the video and audio. The TV set may be old and even black and white Vs color and with only one poor quality speaker. The size of the TV also does not matter. The viewer will see and hear a program that is faithful to the broadcast content.
Where as with computers and their use for browsing on the Internet, no such widely adopted standard exists. In particular computers that are connected to the Internet such as Intel/Microsoft based PCs, Mac, Web TV, internet appliances, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant), and even cell phones all have widely different processing and imaging capabilities. Additionally, they are connected to the Internet, with very different speeds and qualities of connection. The Internet author must take into account both the visual quality and the time to send and render these images. That which will fill a small PDA screen in black and white will be very small when viewed on a large CRT connected to an engineering workstation. From the other point of view, a full-page image with millions of colors will not even display on a small PDA. Accordingly, the need exists for an image translation method that is aware of the device that requested the image and also of the interconnection speed.
Of particular importance is an entire new set of connected devices such as cell phones and PDAs. These devices have small displays with poor image processing capabilities. However the user is typically a mobile professional that expects high quality content that is timely and very legible, perhaps even in full sunlight. Accordingly the need exists for images to be convertible so as to communicate the sought for information within the confines of the connection speed, quality, processing and imaging capabilities of the requesting client. All this translation and selection should be accomplished in a timely fashion and with a reasonable cost at the server.
Typically, a user of the WWW (World Wide Web) wishing to share visual information must create an image in one format for distribution. Variations in network speed, browser functionality, and computer processor capabilities make limiting visual presentation over the WWW to one format undesirable.
Therefore a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above, and particularly for a certain class of images that contain not only visual information but also textual information.
Illustrated in FIG. 1, is a block diagram 100, representing a diverse population of networked devices, such as found on the Internet. There is a web content server 104, which is connected to the network 102 with a high-speed connection known as a T-1 connection 106. This server is hosting information content, which contains at lease some graphical files 108.
There is a business grade workstation 110 connected to the network through a DSL connection 112. This station also has high-end graphic capabilities 114.
A high-speed satellite dish 118 is wirelessly connecting a Macintosh class Apple computer 116 to the network. This computer has a graphic capability that is non-Intel based.
The notebook PC 120 is connected to the network through a normal dial-up connection known as POTS 122 (Plain old Telephone System). The notebook's graphic capability is usually not as good as a normal desktop.
There is a cell tower connected to the network 124 (computer is not shown) that is wirelessly connected to a PDA 126. The connectivity and graphic capability for this device is very low, and yet the need for receiving timely information is usually very high.
Lastly, there is a satellite up-link server 128 that is connected to the network through a T-1 connection 130. This up-link server provides information to satellite subscribers by transmitting information to a satellite for re-broadcast back to earth. It has a high-end graphic platform 132.
It is noted that the speed and quality of the connections to the network varies greatly for the different devices. Additionally, the computer processing and graphic capability for these different machines have very different abilities. The rendering and viewing experiences for the different platforms are very different. Accordingly there is a need to serve the intended images across the Internet into these different platforms in an efficient and timely way.